My Home Ideas

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I'll REALLY try my hardest to not let this get long winded (as I usually do).

I have a home that was built in 1987. I live in South Florida, specifically in Fort Lauderdale. For those of you familiar with the area, the homes built during that time period were often built with a flair of "ultra modern". It's hard to imagine, but if you could combine Mediterrainian with 80s Ultra Modern, that's the kind of styling you'd have with many of the homes down here.

Anyway, my home is no exception.

The house was painted originally WHITE, with pink accents all around, and pink shingles (yes, seriously...). This was considered "cool" back then.

Anyway, the house will get painted white again, but the trim will obviously not be painted white. The doors are still pink, but I plan to take them all off, sand them down, and clean them up.

I'd like to refinish the doors in such a way that they'll still look modern, but a bit more up to date.

They're solid doors, with NO windows at all. A pair of big double doors. They're also SOLID wood. The sealing to the rest of hte house his horrible. I can actually see the outside from the bottom and the top thresholds.

I'd like to keep these doors because they are original to the house, but also because they just don't make solid wood doors like this anymore. (They're a couple hundred pounds each)

Can someone direct me to a site where I might get some design ideas?

I see a lot of homes install stainless still panelling going across the center. This seems to be the trend for modernizing the 80s ultra-modern styling.

Also, what's the easiest thing to do to ensure that my doors have a good seal? The frame is still good, and the doors are still relatively solid. Would just replacing the thresholds work? The doors don't seem to shut totaly flat. They seem to shut in sort of a "V" pattern, although not really pronounced... but just enough to see some sunlight from the top and bottom where the doors meet.

If you're set on keeping the doors, you could get a higher threshhold and replace the old one with it, to close the gap at the bottom. For the top, you may need to replace the door stop (little molding around the frame that the doors hit when closed). You could either make one yourself or go to the lumber store and see what types of molding they have in stock. Just pick one that is thicker than the gap that shows between the jamb head and the doors.

For modernizing the doors, just get on your computer and Google things like Doors, custom or Doors, wood, and see what you get. Also go to the local Home Depot or Lowes and see what they have in their manufacturer's catalogs. Might be something in there that you could duplicate on your doors.